falling into a state of frenzy

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The American Revivalist movement coincided with the heyday of bundling which you may remember from this old post. One of the proponents of this practice was Lavinia Umphreville who advocated the renunciation of normal marriage in favour of more spiritual unions.

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“Holy kisses” were regarded as specially praiseworthy and Lavinia’s young followers devoted themselves to the pursuit of these holy kisses and more.

The Rev. John H. Noyes saw with alarm the signs of a coming storm. He found that among this group of beautiful women, not a few of the more passionate creatures were falling into a state of frenzy, over which he feared that he could exercise no control. The preacher of holiness felt that in the presence of these seductions he was but a man, and liable to fall so he fled from the dangerous predicament.

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This sudden disappearance of the preacher only fanned the fire at Brimfield. Two days after his departure from the town, Mary Lincoln and Maria Brown found their way into the Rev. Simon Lovett’s room, awoke him from his sleep, and suffered themselves to be taken in the act.

When they found out that Mary had been banished (cast out, as they said, for the sake of Christ) her friends came flocking to her side ; Maria Brown, Abby Brown, Flavilla Howard and many more who then began to praise the Lord, to sing, and dance, and kiss each other in a frantic way.

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It quickly became a custom for fervently religious young ladies to enter the bedroom of a preacher in the middle of the night for bundling and other purposes. The clergy responded enthusiastically and it was only when the three ladies who had initiated the movement overstepped the mark by running naked through the countryside that authority brought the practice to an abrupt end.

twelve

Most women would say they prefer quality to quantity when it comes to the number of times their partners are willing or able to have sex in a 24 hour period. But to some men numbers mean everything….

“A former Duke d’Orleans prided himself of having engaged in amorous combat twelve times in a single night with Mlle Deschamps. After that famous night, in honour of his exploit, he had the number 12 imprinted on the buttons of his breeches, coats and hats; he had his shirts marked with the figure 12. He wanted to have everything in dozens: twelve guns, twelve swords, twelve settings for his table, twelve dishes on his menu. Each day his treasurer delivered to him twelve hundred francs for pocket money, and when he bestowed a little tip or a present it was twelve francs or twelve louis.”

Others feel that two or three ‘benevolencies’ on a single night are sufficient demonstration of potency.

“Once is enough for a sick man to do;

Sound men can easily raise it to two.

Hotblooded gallants will go up to three;

Monks can reach five, when they’re off on a spree.

Six times or seven; no gentlemen’s job;

That’s fit for rustics, or some furloughed gob.

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Excerpt from The Philosophy of the Bed by Mary Eden & Richard Carrington

follow me to Shangri-La

Shelley Winters was a great character actress who portrayed a drab factory girl in A Place in the Sun and a sex starved mother in Lolita. She wasn’t particularly beautiful but her love life was steamier than most other sex symbols of her time.

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“Yvonne De Carlo told me that Mr Erroll Flynn was giving a small dinner party and asked if I wanted to go so I put on my red satin you-know-what-shoes and drove out to his place in Hollywood Hills. The butler handed me a double martini in a silver goblet and Yvonne and I  were introduced to Mr Clark Gable and another couple.

Erroll

We ate at a glass top table in an outdoor dining room surrounded by flowers and birds, and there were real gardenias floating in the pool. While we were having Irish coffee a doctor arrived and all three men left the dinner table. I heard each of them yell “Ouch” and one by one they returned buttoning their shirts and rubbing their right shoulders.

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After the second “ouch” I excused myself and sneaked down the hall so I could peek in the room where the doctor was. I saw Mr Flynn with his shirt off and the doctor cutting a little flap of skin on the back of his shoulder, inserting a capsule, then stitching it back up. It seemed very weird  and to this day no doctor has ever been able to offer an explanation for what I saw.

Before we headed into the screening room to watch a movie, Yvonne invited me to go to the ladies room with her. “Which one do you want?” she asked. I hesitated and she said “I think Erroll really likes you so I’ll sacrifice myself and take Gable” and that’s how we decided.

Sacrificial Yvonne

As the lights went out Mr Flynn put his arm around me and I swooned like a Victorian heroine. I couldn’t tell you what the film was about but half way though watching it something shiny caught my eye. Mr Flynn must have pressed a button because a 12 foot panel slid back to reveal a raised platform with a huge satin covered bed with the top sheet turned back, ready. Around the bed were books, telephones, a bar, an icebox, a radio and a phonograph. On the ceiling was a mirror which also slid back to reveal the moon and stars through a flowering magnolia tree.

seduction den found here

When the movie ended everyone got up to leave but Mr Flynn’s arm kept me pinned to the seat. Maybe I wasn’t trying too hard to escape. He said to the others “Don’t worry about Shelley, I’ll see she gets home.”

“Remember she has to be at work at 6:30 on Monday morning” said Yvonne. I wondered what the hell she was talking about, it was only Friday night. In those days when the film industry considered a scene censorable, the camera would pan to such things as the fireplace or waves on a beach or fireworks in the sky.

So… cut to:

A fire ROARING in a fireplace

Waves POUNDING on a beach

Fireworks EXPLODING

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, WITH CANNONS

Sydney fireworks 2007

By the way I WAS late for work on Monday…….

t shirt friday 24.9.2010

I’ve run out of t shirts so this one has been borrowed from my son

sledpress is also wearing a t shirt today

the prizefighter, the alleycat and the president

Groucho

When I think of Groucho Marx I think of cigars and animal crackers and nights at the opera. He also wrote fine letters to people he admired such as T S Eliot

November 1, 1963

Dear Tom

Since you are actually an early American, (I don’t mean you are an old piece of furniture but you are a fugitive from St Louis), you should have heard of Tom Gibbons. For your edification, Tom Gibbons was a native of Minnesota which is only a stone’s throw from Missouri. That is, if the stone is encased in a missile. Tom was, at one time, the light-heavyweight champion of the world.

Tom Gibbons

The name Tom fits many things. There was once a famous Jewish actor named Thomashevsky. All male cats are named Tom – unless they have been fixed. In that case they are just neutral and, as the upheaval in Saigon has just proved, there is no place any more for neutrals.

Thomashevsky

The third President of the United States first name was Tom…. in case you’ve forgotten Jefferson.

So, when I call you Tom, this means you are a mixture of a heavyweight prizefighter, a male alley cat and the third President of the United States.

Albert the Alley Cat

I have just finished my latest opus, “Memoirs of a Mangy Lover.” Most of it is autobiographical and very little of it is fiction. I doubt whether it will live through the ages, but if you are in a sexy mood the night you read it, it may stimulate you beyond recognition and rekindle memories that you haven’t recalled in years.

memoirs

I would be interested in reading your views on sex, so don’t hesitate. Confide in me. Though admittedly unreliable, I can be trusted with matters as important as that.

My best to you and Mrs. Tom.

Yours, Groucho

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defloration

Edvard Westermarck (1862-1939) was a Swedish sociologist who wrote about the history of marriage and associated ancient customs around the world.

In Madagascar, the women had a unique way of choosing a husband. The man in question would stand at a certain distance from a proficient athlete and be obliged to catch between his arm and side every spear that was thrown at him. If he displayed fear or failed to catch any of the spears he was rejected.

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Among the Dongolowees, if two men are suitors for one girl and she has difficulty deciding between the rivals the following method is adopted. The girl ties a knife to each forearm so that the blades project below her elbows. She sits on a log of wood, the men on each side with their legs loosely pressed against her. Raising her arms she leans forward and slowly presses the knives into the thighs of her suitors. He who best undergoes this trial becomes her husband. Her first duty after marriage is to dress the wounds she herself inflicted.

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Among the South American Uaupes a swollen calf is considered one of the best attractions a young lady can possess, the result being that girls wear a tight garter below the knee from infancy. The Hottentots are charmed by women’s long and pendulous breasts which can assume such monstrous dimensions that the usual way of giving suck when the child is carried on the back is by throwing the breast over the shoulder.

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Among the Arawaks and some people in the province of Paria, a virgin bride had to spend the first night with the local priest. In Venezuela, legitimate wives, but not concubines, were deflowered by priests and it was considered a great crime not to conform to this custom. Among the Senegalese the king not only has the power of life or death over his subjects but also le droit du seigneur everywhere in the tribe and no girl can marry until she has been deflowered by him.

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Every year the Kurds have a great feast, assembling in a large room for promiscuous intercourse. After the congregation have kissed the priest’s hand he cries out “I am a great bull.” The most recently married woman steps forward and replies “I am a young cow”, after which the lights are dimmed and the orgies begin.

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On the coast of Malabar, Brahmans act as deflowerers of brides. They are not always willing to preform this duty and often oblige husbands to pay four or five hundred ducats to make it worth their while.  In Central Africa when a young girl is “danced” or “initiated” a father has to pay a man to sleep with his daughter by giving him a fowl, a bowl of flour and a small bowl of beer.

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broody boys

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The tendency for men to become broody when women were nearing childbirth has been noted since ancient times. In a Basque custom the husband of a woman at the end of her pregnancy would take to his bed and pretend to be lying-in. Sometimes he would dress in his wife’s clothes and simulate the cries of labour. While in this condition he would be treated with great consideration, forbidden to handle tools or undertake hard work and given the most delicious foods. When the child was born he would nurse it in bed and receive congratulations from relatives and friends.

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Marco Polo write of this after observing the people of Zardandan.

“After giving birth the woman gets up and goes about her normal chores while her husband retires to bed for 40 days with the baby by his side. All his relatives come to visit and keep up a great festivity because as they say “the woman had had a hard bout of it and ’tis but fair the man should have his suffering too“

The Huichol Indians had a different technique for dealing with labour pains

During traditional childbirth, the father sits above his labouring wife on the roof of their hut. Ropes are tied around his testicles and his wife holds onto the other ends. Each time she feels a painful contraction, she tugs on the ropes so that her husband will share some of the pain of their child’s entrance into the world.

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I can’t imagine many men these days allowing a labouring woman to rope their testicles up. The designers at BenjaminMales have come up with this modern day version but whether it will prove to be any more popular remains to be seen.

healthy strokes

Since this is (or was) a hospital blog you’re probably expecting a post on TMS to be about transcranial magnetic stimulation. This is not the case today as it’s my sad duty as a medical professional to instead warn you about the dangers of traumatic mastubatory syndrome.

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TMS is the habit some males have of masturbating in a face-down (prone) position. Some TMS practitioners rub their penises against the mattress, pillow, or other bedding, or the floor, others lie on their stomachs and thrust into their hands.*

These sensations are not easily replicated in conventional masturbation or in sexual intercourse. It’s a common experience among males who are used to masturbating face down to engage in sexual intercourse for over half an hour, fail to have an orgasm, and then try to reach orgasm in an atypical way, such as thrusting the penis against his partner’s legs, palm, or bed. Needless to say, the female partners of these men find their behavior unusual and disturbing.**

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Conventional masturbation is a basic sexual skill for males. By not being able to masturbate conventionally, these males are lacking a basic sexual skill. Dr. Lawrence I. Sank reiterates that masturbation is supposed to be performed with the hand while lying supine. The very nature of TMS means that it can only be done in bed. Normal males can masturbate almost anywhere.

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Most men with TMS, if they can have intercourse at all, are usually limited to the “missionary” position. They also report an inability to achieve orgasm from fellatio.*** Since they are unable to manually stimulate themselves to orgasm, naturally they are unable to have manual intercourse performed on them by a partner. The majority of males who masturbate conventionally have had intercourse successfully in at least five positions.

Let’s take a step back from masturbation and talk about ejaculation. It’s necessary for males past puberty to ejaculate. The male sexual organs produce a number of fluids that have to be eliminated periodically. Doctors specializing in sexuality generally agree that a male must ejaculate at least once every two weeks to avoid damage to his sexual functioning.

A rule of thumb in males under 30 is

M = 8 – (2 * I)

where M is the weekly masturbation frequency and I is the weekly frequency of sexual intercourse. So, a male under 30 who has intercourse twice a week probably masturbates four times a week while one without a partner probably masturbates eight times a week.

A sign that you’re masturbating in a healthy fashion is that you recognize that orgasm is imminent but consciously decide to put it off for a while so you can enjoy masturbating longer. That’s a skill that will be most useful when having sex with women.

Friends who’ve met me in real life have heard the sorry tale of nursemyra and Mattress Man. Yes, dear reader, long long ago I met a somewhat amusing, seemingly intelligent and not too unattractive male who inveigled his way into my bed. There was some kissing, a touch of foreplay, an unsuccessful attempt at fellatio….. followed by some frantic thrusting and the deflowering of my Sealy Posturepedic.

Mattress Man lay back upon my ravished sheets in a state of post coital bliss. Having not then attained the wealth of medical knowledge I now possess, I could only look on in wide eyed horror and dream that one day in the future I’d be able to laugh and share this poignant moment with a few hundred strangers around the globe……

from Married To The Sea (click to enlarge)

* Tick

** Double tick

*** Triple tick

corset friday 17.9.2010

‘specting

The I Love Lucy Show was a little before my time so I don’t know too much about it. I do like these little snippets that Desi Arnaz told about the period of his life when he was married to Lucille Ball and they were creating a landmark television series together.

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“When we found out Lucille was pregnant we wanted to incorporate it into the show. CBS and the sponsors were horrified and said we couldn’t do it. So I wrote to Alfred Lyons, chairman of Philip Morris, asking him to reconsider their position and after a week or so all arguments about the “pregnant” shows stopped. I figured my letter had worked but wasn’t sure what he had said or done.

A couple of years later I called by his office in New York to say hello. As I was leaving his secretary tapped me on the arm saying “Did you ever wonder why all the objections to Lucy being pregnant on the show suddenly stopped?”

“Sure” I said. She showed me a well worn memo signed A.L. that explained everything. It only contained one sentence “Don’t fuck around with the Cuban!”

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At the time we had to be very careful not to offend anyone especially religious groups. So we had a Catholic Monsignor, a Jewish Rabbi and Reverend Clifton Moore of the Hollywood Presbyterian Church with us four days a week, checking the scripts and watching us film. The only word we had trouble with was “pregnant” which the CBS censor would not let us say. Our religious advisors gave us the ok to use “expecting” instead which came out as “specting” because of my accent.

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Our own son was born on the same night as the episode where Lucy gave birth was aired on national television. Over two million more people watched our show that night than watched General Eisenhower being inaugurated as President the following day. Desi Junior and I ran into the General ten years later playing golf at El Dorado Country Club. “So that’s the little fellow who bumped me off the front pages the day before my inauguration” he said. Not one to hold a grudge, he shouted Desi a banana split later at the clubhouse. But he didn’t offer to buy me any Cuban rum.”

Sometimes these posts are more about the accompanying images than the little stories. Check out this site where I found the Eisenhower photomorph. Barbarella Bush, Billi Clinton, Lynda Johnson, Sweet Ronni all make an appearance…..